Asus Padfone Infinity launches at MWC 2013

Asus may have introduced the best phone of Mobile World Congress 2013 with the introduction of the Padfone Infinity. This super-charged Android phone sports a high-end set of specs and comes with some unique tricks.

The Padfone Infinity has a five-inch, 1080p HD display with 441 pixels per inch. Asus said it uses its Dynamic Display technology to ensure that touch is extremely responsive, pictures are crystal clear and that it provides a good overall experience.

The main draw of the Padfone lineup is that you can drop the phone into a tablet shell with a 10.1-inch screen and have a larger screen device, and that legacy continues with the Padfone Infinity. The Padfone Infinity in the tablet shell will operate like a standard Android tablet, but you can receive calls on it in the larger mode and even use your phone's mobile connection to get online. That shell also triples your battery life.

Asus has built some custom software for the Padfone Infiinity like SuperNote 3.1, which lets you crop photos or save messages. Asus Echo is the company's voice software and this lets you do things like operate the camera by saying "cheese." It will also give you audible alerts and when you're driving, it can tell you who's calling so you can choose to accept or not.

Inside, we're looking at a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor at 1.7GHz and Qualcomm's CEO Paul Jacobs even stopped by the introduction to say hello. You also get 50GB of online storage from Asus, 2GB of RAM, 4G LTE and all the other goodies you'd expect from a device of this class. Look forward to a 13-megapixel camera on this thing with the ability to shoot 1080p HD video.

Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic about the Padfone Infinity coming to the United States, as the previous devices never really made their ways to our shores outside of a few unlocked devices. At the introduction conference, Asus had an executive from China Telecom, so I'm expecting this to be marketed towards regions outside the United States. That might be for the best, as the combined Padfone Infinity and its tablet shell will cost about 999 Euros, which is well over $1,000.